Former Georgian prime minister Irakli Garibashvili will serve a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges of large-scale money laundering, prosecutors said on Monday.
Garibashvili, who led the country from 2021 to 2024 and earlier from 2013 to 2015, was also fined 1 mln lari ($375,000). He was taken into custody following a court hearing in Tbilisi, according to his lawyer.
The case stems from raids carried out in October, when authorities said they seized $6.5 mln in cash from Garibashvili’s home. He has not publicly commented on the charges.
Garibashvili is a longtime ally of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, widely seen as Georgia’s de facto ruler. His conviction marks the first jailing of a senior figure linked to the ruling elite amid a wider crackdown that has also targeted opposition leaders and former officials, drawing criticism from Western partners over Georgia’s democratic backsliding.
Kursiv Uzbekistan also reports U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr accused Germany of prosecuting «a thousand physicians» for issuing vaccine and mask exemptions during the Covid-19 pandemic, claims the German government has dismissed as unfounded.
